Suspenseful Seven-Sentence Sunday -- No End in Sight

Sometimes what prompts me to start writing a story is nothing more than an image, which ultimately finds itself somewhere in the middle of my work. My novel-in-progress began with one such image -- that of a dog finding something disgusting in some shrubbery near a country cottage:

She backs out of the low shrubs and turns toward me, her tail wagging proudly. Hanging from her mouth is half of an arm, from about mid-forearm down.

At one end, there’s a claw-like hand; at the other end, a blood-encrusted stump. Cookie approaches me until I tell her to stop. “Oh, Christ! Cookie, drop it!” She’s ready to listen, and deposits her prized possession ten feet away from me. She can sense I’m not as excited about her discovery as she is, and looks askance as a maggot crawls across her quizzical face.

My novel has been in progress for over a year now. I have about 50 more pages to achieve what I think is a reasonable length for my first draft, and I'll confess that I'm not sure yet how it ends. At this point, I'm in as much suspense as you are.

Check out the other Suspenseful 7 Sentence writers at http://suspenseful7ss.blogspot.com